


An Essay on Stupidity - by Emma Frost

by orphan_account



Series: Essays [3]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 18:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15779406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: My rule is: see the situation, collect the data and look at it from the outside. There is no way you can affect something if you are merely observing it. Most certainly do not simply barge into the problem with a half assed “plan”.But when do people listen to me?





	An Essay on Stupidity - by Emma Frost

**Author's Note:**

> Reading the other parts of this series is needed to understand the story.

Stupidity is an intrinsic characteristic of humans. My telepathy has given me a deeper perspective into that. Even when people are not being actively stupid, they are sabotaging themselves in mere thought.

For example, when Sebastian Shaw (a lawyer who works at the same company that I do) is not illegally changing a few contracts here and there to give trouble to the humans, he is thinking if I know what he is doing, and if he should blackmail me into submission.

Sure, Dear, go ahead and try.

(Perhaps in another world I would have to take precautions against that. As it is, poor Sebastian has only enough power to boil the water to cook pasta.)

Nothing new, though. Almost everyone acts that way around telepaths. And contrary to popular belief about us, I don’t go around invading just any and every mind. Not any more, at least. It does get boring to keep seeing the same errors being architected by different people over and over again.

(But try to stay in a room filled with children and see if you can block out all the noise…)

I most certainly would not know about what Sebastian does if he didn’t spend his time screaming that at me. But of course, I am not one to reject what is offered. And knowledge is one of the greatest weapons known to mankind. Has always been. I’d wager that its value will only increase from now on…

And even if you do not consider telepathy, people still find ways to let stupid thoughts simply dominate them. From insecurity to paranoia, they choose to fail in their goals. That is, of course, not counting pathologies. Those are entirely different. Much to my surprise, telepathy has not aided me much in understanding them.

In the end, I can judge all I want, but at least a thought is only a thought if there is no action upon it (although sometimes the problem lies exactly in that.) But then there are those people who act stupidly. Repeatedly.

My rule is: see the situation, collect the data and look at it from the outside. There is no way you can affect something if you are merely observing it. Most certainly do not simply barge into the problem with a half assed “plan”.

But when do people listen to me?

Take a friend of mine as an example. Erik has a long history of “fuck ups”.

I hadn’t met him yet when the whole “Charles debacle” - as I’ve come to call it - happened. But I have been there, in a way.

I’m no expert in interpersonal relationships, despite what you might think, but the common procedure when you catch your long term boyfriend cheating on you certainly is not to simply walk away. Especially not for Erik.

(I haven’t touched on the subject of the reason for that behavior. Not to spare Erik’s feelings, because despite caring about him, it couldn’t matter less to me if his own feelings make him uncomfortable. Your feelings, your mess. Sort them out.

But it is only the practical attitude, since I know it wouldn’t solve his problems, as he would refuse to hear me.)

Then, after a disaster of a marriage that failed mostly because of him…

(Sure, problems leading to a divorce are rarely one sided, but my opinion is that Magda’s greatest error was marrying him in the first place.)

He decides to use the opportunity to avenge the past like some Shakespearean character.

And apparently, even after the warnings, I bear some friendly responsibility to fix things.

I have to go to Peter’s school meeting. I have to take Erik to the hospital to have his face fixed after a meeting with Xavier’s sister. I have to tolerate his whiskey muddled mind for hours while I make sure that he won’t choke in his own vomit.

(Somehow it is immoral to gently nudge people’s minds in the right direction. If I had my way, all those plans would be gone from Erik’s mind as soon as I saw them. But I have given up raw power for subtlety - there is a certain beauty in persuading with dialogue rather than brutal change. And I wasn’t interested in becoming half mad with power, had I tried to go that path.)

Just like in a tragic story, Erik missed half of the facts.

The whole thing had been caused by Xavier’s sister.

(A stupid bet. A shapeshifter. A crackpot telepath drugging himself. Erik uncharacteristically being not-Erik.

Let it simmer and you have the recipe for a mess.)

I’m still not an expert on interpersonal relationships, but wouldn’t you consider that something was wrong if you caught someone whom you know that loves you cheating on you? You’d have to choose to believe that one of those things was a lie.

Knowing Erik, it is not difficult to guess which one he labeled as untruthful.

I used to dislike Xavier.

I may personally be somewhat repulsed by romantic engagements, but infidelity is a breach of a civilized deal between two parties. And, well, I’d seen what it did to Erik.

But there is no reason to keep animosity towards the man, now that I know the truth.

(Funny thing how people think that telepaths know everything. We’re bound to the perspective of the mind we’re in. If they believe that’s the truth, then, for all effects, it is.)

And at the end of it all, I worry.

(And it all makes me wonder…  
People like Erik end up in jail for killing others in the heat of the moment, or alcoholics who wallow in self hate.  
People like Xavier end up in psychiatric hospitals or dead in an overdose.  
Sometimes.  
Sometimes not...)

 

 


End file.
